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Tuesday, 1 May 2018

They Are All My Children

Grieving
over a departed loved one, be it a parent, a spouse, a partner and worst of all,
a child is one of the most excruciating experiences anyone could ever go
through.

Grieving and
mourning has become an inseparable part of our daily life here in Yisrael. Unfortunately,
this experience has touched almost every family here. We all know someone who
has been inflicted and tormented by this pain. The words “he was, she was, they
were” send shivers through my spine. The younger the departed ones are, the
greater the pain.

Generally, we talk about breaved parents, a bereaved family, friends or
acquaintances. Last week I encountered another category, the grieving teacher.
I am one.

Several years ago, I taught English at a local high school. I remember the
bright day that I walked into my twelve-grade class. As I was looking around
the room, I was suddenly overcome with a concern, a fear for my beloved
students. With welling eyes, I examined their faces as if trying to commit
their features to memory.

“What
happened Bat-Zion?” one of them asked me as they noticed the waves of grief
that overcame me and simply refused to subside.

I gathered my strength, regained my composure and said, “Next year, you are all
going to be members of the IDF. You are all my children. I love, care and worry
about each and everyone of you like a loving parent. All I ask of G-d is that
He watches over you and brings you back home safely.”

What made me walk into that class that day, say what I did and act the way I
did? Was it premonition? Was it my love and concern for the well being of my
students? Or perhaps it was my motherly instinct that gave rise to the surge of
emotions?

Several weeks later, Operation Protective Edge started. Its first victim was
one of my former students. I became a bereaved teacher. True, my pain would
never be that of a biological parent, but it was still a deep pain. It still
is.

He was one of my sons. They are all my sons. They
are all my daughters too. They are all my children. May G-d watch over all of
them, keep them safe and bring them back home unharmed.